Description

TF 6120 SE MARKET STREET
610-1/7/10002 Kings Lynn
17-JUL-00 (North side)
The Lynn Museum (formerly the Union Ba
ptist Chapel)

II

Union Baptist chapel. 1859 by Robert Moffat Smith. Schoolrooms added at east end 1867, converted to museum 1904, re-floored 1960s and given suspended ceilings, extended on north side 1973. Gault brick banded with red brick and some stone dressings; slate roofs.
PLAN: ecclesiastical plan of north-west steeple, nave, transepts north and south forming a cruciform east end. Schoolroom extension to east of double-gabled form with north and south flanking gables.
EXTERIOR: 3-stage north-west tower of square section supported by two flat buttresses up to ringing chamber on north side, and by one on south side. Recessed west doorway under pointed arch inscribed: Museum and Art Gallery 1904. Arch develops into a tall pointed gablet containing a trefoil. One pointed lancet to ringing chamber north and west. String course below 2-light plate-tracery belfry windows, one to each facet. Pear-drop frieze below broached stone-clad tapering spire with one small lucarne to each facet.
Canted baptistry to south lit through 2 tall 2-light Decorated windows with cusped lights and with encircled trefoil vesicas. Pear-drop frieze below cornice. Blind window to south facet of baptistry apse, and one trefoiled lancet to south face of baptistry, under an arched cornice.
North nave with 4 lancets, the 2 in the recessed portion designed to step up when seen with the ringing chamber lancet.
South nave with 2 narrow lancets, followed to the east by the south transept gable: 2 narrow lancets separated by a flat buttress; clasping corner buttresses; wheel window in gable filled with 3 cusped trefoils. North transept front identical, but without buttressing.
Eastern arm with lean-to vestries to north and south, that to south with an arched doorway and a 2-light window. In main wall above each vestry is one circular window with 3 uncusped trefoils, lighting the organ gallery. East end obscured by schoolroom addition, leaving the wheel window partly covered: Star of David tracery.
Schoolroom with symmetrical south elevation: central gable with arched doorway under hoodmould and voussoirs of banded brick. Wheel window in gable with Star of David tracery. Flanking the gable to east and west is one 2-light arched window with banded voussoirs and Y tracery, and one arched lancet beyond, with similar voussoirs. Each of the 5 elements separated by narrow flat buttresses.
North elevation with similar gable but with 3 stepped lancets in the gable head. Remainder of lower elevation obscured and altered by flat-roofed single-storey brick extension of 1973. East end with 2 unpierced gables and prominent red brick banding.
INTERIOR: main vessel of chapel with 4 circular cast-iron piers with wide fillets to cardinal points rising to block capitals, and continuing with similar piers terminating in crocket capitals beneath the main posts of the roof. Main posts, braced back to side walls at the base, rise to arcade plates, and have arched braces in 3 directions, developed into continuous arches towards the transepts. The arched braces running inwards support the principal rafters and meet at collars to form a continuous arch. Secondary upper purlins. Arches beneath arcade plates with vertical posts to the plates.
Tower with one arched opening to west and south. West raking gallery supported on a single square post with chamfered edges from which runs a beam to the west end, and a north-south beam under the gallery front. Gallery with plain plank and muntin balustrade.
East gallery (organ chamber) with similar gallery front, reached by staircase from south entry.
Schoolroom with 2 pairs of circular cast-iron piers with Corinthian capitals supporting the valley of the 2 roof structures. 1973 doorway to the north.

Listing NGR: TF6200820054

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• The Lynn Museum official website
• Wikidata Q26662392

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)